More than a quarter of small businesses surveyed said they planned to increase investments and hire more staff in 2019. However, as the calendar now flips to a new year, is that near-record optimism justified in light of recent economic news?

A six-year contract ratified by the United Auto Workers is now the subject of an unusual dispute, after Navistar told the News-Sun Wednesday that the company is not willing to sign the agreement because workers in Springfield have not approved a separate, local agreement with the truck…[Read more]

“This may be the first rulemaking initiated by the Trump administration that is actually designed to reduce air pollution,” said Paul Billings, senior vice president for public policy at the American Lung Association.

The bottlenecks have caused a spike in the price of ethane as producers demand more of it to feed sprawling new plants, to some degree undercutting the promise of low-cost feedstock that has fueled a resurgence in petrochemicals manufacturing along the U.S. Gulf…[Read more]